Despovoação da pessoa

Tudo que havia contribuído
para forjar, no tempo, uma pessoa,
tentando dar coerência
à sua instabilidade crônica,

tudo que, medido e marcado,
era um acréscimo de regulação
para o funcionamento ordinário
–nome, renome, cadastro etc.–

foi de repente estilhaçado
e, como cacos de vento

no caminho incerto e novo,
nada do que a fazia persiste

na sensação de liberdade
que esta pessoa de perfil nulo conquista,

ou melhor, conhece, atravessada
por lufadas de pó.

Despoblamiento de la persona

Todo lo que había contribuido
para forjar, en el tiempo, una persona,
intentando dar coherencia
a su inestabilidad crónica,
todo lo que, medido y marcado,
era un añadido de regulación
para el funcionamiento ordinario
–nombre, renombre, registro, etc.–
se astilló de pronto
y, como trozos de viento
en el camino incierto y nuevo,
nada de lo que que la hacía persiste
en la sensación de libertad
que esta persona de perfil nulo conquista,
o mejor, conoce, atravesada
por ráfagas de polvo.

Leonardo Fróes

The house at rest

On a dark night

Kindled in love with yearnings —

Oh, happy chance! —

I went forth unobserved,

My house being now at rest.

– St. John of the Cross

How does one hush one’s house,

each proud possessive wall, each sighing rafter,

the rooms made restless with remembered laughter

or wounding echoes, the permissive doors,

the stairs that vacillate from up to down,

windows that bring in color and event

from countryside or town,

oppressive ceilings and complaining floors?

The house must first of all accept the night.

Let it erase the walls and their display,

impoverish the rooms till they are filled

with humble silences; let clocks be stilled

and all the selfish urgencies of day.

Midnight is not the time to greet a guest.

Caution the doors against both foes and friends,

and try to make the windows understand

their unimportance when the daylight ends.

Persuade the stairs to patience, and denythe passages their aimless to and fro.

Virtue it is that puts a house at rest.

How well repaid that tenant is, how blest

who, when the call is heard,

is free to take his kindled heart and go.

Jessica Powells (Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit)

To live with the Spirit

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a listener.

It is to keep the vigil of mystery,

earthless and still.

One leans to catch the stirring of the Spirit,

strange as the wind’s will.

The soul that walks where the wind of the Spirit blows

turns like a wandering weather-vane toward love.

It may lament like Job or Jeremiah,

echo the wounded hart, the mateless dove.

It may rejoice in spaciousness of meadow

that emulates the freedom of the sky.

Always it walks in waylessness, unknowing;

it has cast down forever from its hand

the compass of the whither and the why.

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a lover.

It is becoming love, and like to Him

toward Whom we strain with metaphors of creatures:

fire-sweep and water-rush and the wind’s whim.

The soul is all activity, all silence;

and though it surges Godward to its goal,

it holds, as moving earth holds sleeping noonday,

the peace that is the listening of the soul.

Jessica Powells (Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit)

La música es el mayor consuelo ya por el hecho de que no crea palabras nuevas [...] Cuanto más densamente esté poblada la Tierra y cuanto más mecánica sea la configuración de la vida, más imprescindible tendrá que ser la música. Llegará un tiempo en el que sólo a través de ella podremos escabullirnos de las estrechas mallas de las funciones; y conservarla como una reserva de libertad poderosa y no influida deberá considerarse como la tarea más importante de la vida espiritual futura.

Elias Canetti, La provincia del hombre. Año 1942.

One or two things

1

Don't bother me

I've just

been born.

2

The butterfly's loping flight

carries it through the country of the leaves

delicately, and well enough to get it

where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping

here and there to fuzzle the damp throats

of flowers and the black mud; up

and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes

for long delicious moments it is perfectly

lazy, riding motionless in the breeze of the soft stalk

of some ordinary flower

3

The god of dirt

came up to me many times and said

so many wise and delectable things; I lay

on the grass listening

to his dog voice,

crow voice,

frog voice; now

he said, and now,

and never once mentioned forever,

4

which has nevertheless always been,

like a sharp iron hoof,

at the center of my mind.

5

One or two things are all you need

to travel over the blue pond, over the deep

roughage of the trees and through the stiff

flowers of lightning --- some deep

memory of pleasure, some cutting

knowledge of pain.

6

But to lift the hoof!

For that you need

an idea.

7

For years and years I struggled

just to love my life. And then

the butterfly

rose, weightless, in the wind.

"Don't love your life

too much," it said,

and vanished

into the world.

Mary Oliver

La música es el mayor consuelo ya por el hecho de que no crea palabras nuevas  [...] Cuanto más densamente esté poblada la Tierra y cuanto más mecánica sea la configuración de la vida, más imprescindible tendrá que ser la música. Llegará un tiempo en el que sólo a través de ella podremos escabullirnos de las estrechas mallas de las funciones y conservarla como una reserva de libertad poderosa y no influida deberá considerarse como la tarea más importante de la vida espiritual futura.

Elias Canetti, La provincia del hombre. Año 1942.

St. Peter and The Angel

Delivered out of raw continual pain,

smell of darkness, groans of those others
to whom he was chained—

unchained, and led
past the sleepers,
door after door silently opening—
out!
     And along a long street's
majestic emptiness under the moon:

one hand on the angel's shoulder, one
feeling the air before him,
eyes open but fixed…

And not till he saw the angel had left him,
alone and free to resume
the ecstatic, dangerous, wearisome roads of
what he had still to do,
not till then did he recognize
this was no dream. More frightening
than arrest, than being chained to his warders:
he could hear his own footsteps suddenly.
Had the angel's feet
made any sound? He could not recall.
No one had missed him, no one was in pursuit.
He himself must be
the key, now, to the next door,
the next terrors of freedom and joy.

Denise Levertov

Endymion

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

An endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

(...)

John Keats